It Was Good

The first reading is the Creation story.  For me the most meaningful part of the story of "the beginning" is the quote, "It was Good."  The version that I read repeats this four times.  One thing I have realized while reading scripture....it it is repeated it is important.  (My past English teachers did not value this technique quite like the authors of the Bible.)

This is meaningful to me because it shows, from the beginning, God created us Good and created a Good world for us to live.  When I was a Children's Minister and in graduate school I did a project that required designing the existing church nursery and children's rooms to reflect appropriate theology.  The toddler room became the Creation Room.  We recreated scenes of the creation story on all the walls and across a prominent beam that was seen from the door and all over the room we put the verse "....and God said it was Good."  I thought this was valuable for the parents to see when they dropped their child off and picked them up.  I also thought that it was powerful for the volunteers and staff to see as the cared for some of the smallest and most vulnerable of God's children.  

How many times does your Bible say, "it was good" in the creation story?